Come all you out of – or into – the cold
by starfishstar
Summary: To come out of the cold, first you have to be in it. A moment of warmth in the winter of OotP.


**Notes: **Written for the rt_morelove "Stocking Filler Exchange," for shimotsuki's prompt: "Warming up by the fire after coming in from the cold."

– – – – –

"BRRRR!" Tonks said. "Brr, brr, brr, it's so _cold _outside."

She flung herself down into one of the armchairs by the fire Sirius had laid in the drawing room, as part of his larger, on-going campaign to force 12 Grimmauld Place into a mood of Christmas cheer despite itself. Remus, already ensconced in the other armchair, smiled across at her.

Tonks rubbed her hands together energetically, then extended them towards the fire. "Oh, this is nice. Thank Merlin for a warm fire, after you've been standing around in the snow for an hour with Mad-Eye Freaking Every Detail of this Protective Charm Must Be Flawless Before I Allow You to Leave Moody."

"Fine for some," Sirius grumbled, similarly flinging himself onto a footstool on Tonks' other side. "Warming up doesn't have quite the same charm if you're not even allowed out to get chilled in the first place."

For a moment Tonks looked stricken, and Sirius kicked himself inwardly. She'd been such an unnecessarily good friend to him in the months since he'd taken up residency-and-or-imprisonment at Grimmauld Place, visiting all the time and bringing her warmth and good cheer into the grim house – and not _only_ because of her not very well disguised interest in the house's other occupant. She was trying to look out for Sirius in this less than ideal situation he now found himself in, and the least he could do was not be surly about it.

Before he could say anything, though, Tonks was leaning away from him, whispering something in Remus' ear. Remus smirked.

Sirius knew that smirk. He'd been on the receiving end of the pranks it tended to precede more times than he could count.

Tonks slid gracefully back out of the armchair, destroyed the effect by tripping over the hearthrug, laughed, and dashed out of the room.

Sirius looked across at Remus and raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to know?"

Remus only smirked harder, if such a thing was possible, and turned his inscrutable attention to the fire.

A minute or two passed, and Sirius was just thinking maybe he'd go try to figure out in Merlin's name Tonks was up to, when something extremely _cold_ hit him in the back of the neck.

"Hey!" he shouted, and spun around to see Fred – no, George – no, definitely Fred grinning at him, remnants of melting snow dripping from his hands. "You little berk. I'm a sitting target!"

"Betcha can't catch me!" was all Fred said, and he dashed back out of the room.

"Oi!" Sirius yelled after him, knocking the footstool over in his hurry to stand, all else forgotten in the thrill of the chase.

He could hear Fred clattering down the stairs, so he followed. Down the corridor, towards the back of the house – of course, the back garden. Closest source at hand for snow and snowballs.

The back door that led to the small, neglected garden that fell within the house's magical protections stood open; Fred's footsteps tracked down the snowy steps, and as he reached the door Sirius could just see a flash of bright ginger hair whipping around out of sight behind one of the overgrown bushes.

"You can't hide from me, young Weasley!" Sirius hollered, just to let him know he was coming. He dashed through the door – and was clobbered from all sides, snowballs pelting his face and back, obscuring his vision and sifting icily down his collar. Boyish laughter rang around him, and a girlish chuckle that sounded suspiciously like Ginny.

"Mercy, mercy!" Sirius cried. "I'm no match for a plague of Weasleys!"

"Ah, you'll be all right," said a voice that sounded like George's, from his left. "Harry says he's on your team."

Sure enough, someone was dropping a pile of pre-formed snowballs into his hands and Harry's voice urged, "Sirius, you go right, I'll go left!"

Brushing snow from his eyes with the sleeve of his definitely-not-meant-as-winter-outdoors-w ear robe, Sirius dashed to the right and took up position behind the crab-apple tree. Fred and George seemed to think the rhododendron was going to afford them cover, which was _pathetic_.

"Harry, left flank!" Sirius yelled.

"You got it!" Harry shouted back, and Fred and George went down under a hail of snow. Ginny, meanwhile, seemed to be assaulting all sides indiscriminately, and Hermione was giggling to herself, having caught Ron with a well-placed shot to the back of the head.

"Oi!" Ron yelled, and then he'd tackled Hermione into the snow.

Sirius grinned.

Looking around for his next opening, Sirius' eye caught two figures watching from one of the ground-floor windows that looked over the garden – Remus and Tonks, standing side by side, shoulders almost touching. They even _looked_ like lovers already, even if they didn't seem to know it. There was a symmetry in the way they stood together, a unified stance like James and Lily used to have, the sort of deep affinity that tended to express itself in epic romances and matching Patronus forms and other such ridiculousness.

Sirius shook his head at himself. No need to be absurd. He'd seen Tonks' Patronus, and it definitely wasn't a wolf.

Both of them were smirking out at him, so Sirius raised his head and stuck out his tongue in their direction, feeling little prickles of cold as a few stray snowflakes landed.

_Join us_, Sirius mouthed.

Remus smiled and shook his head.

Tonks mouthed something back that looked more or less like, _We'll wait by the fire_.

Right, the fire in the drawing room, the one so ideally suited for warming up after coming in from the cold.

Sirius was looking forward to it already.


End file.
